170 



CHAPTER VII. 



LAPPING INSECTS. 



THOSE who have paid attention to a cat while lap^ 

 ping milk, may have remarked, that on darting out 

 her tongue she bends the sides and point of it 

 upwards, so as to form a sort of hollow scoop or 

 spoon, sufficient to contain a considerable quantity 

 of liquid. This is partly aided by the structure of 

 the surface of the tongue itself, which is all over 

 thickly studded with projecting denticulations * (if 

 we may call them so), among which the particles of 

 the liquid must be detained. This flexible and den- 

 ticulated structure of the tongue gives to this family 

 of animals a facility of lapping, which art would in 

 vain attempt to imitate. Quadrupeds of other fami- 

 lies, such as horses and oxen, drink not by lapping, 

 but by sucking. 



In insects again, with which we are more imme- 

 diately concerned, somewhat similar varieties of 

 structure and habits prevail. The first instance 

 which occurs to our recollection, as forming a sort 

 of link between eating and lapping insects, is in 

 the ant family (Formicidce, LEACH). " When 

 ants, 5 * says the younger Huber, " are disposed to 

 drink, there comes out from between their lower 

 jaws, which are much shorter than the upper, a 

 minute, conical, fleshy, yellowish organ, which per- 

 forms the office of a tongue, being pushed out and 

 drawn in alternately : it appears to proceed from 

 * Figured in Menageries, vol. i. p. 179, 



